Sanaa Lathan and Regina Hall: hair, Hollywood and friendship

In Netflix’s ‘What Had Happened Was’ talk series, two favorite friend-in-your-head actresses and BFFs Sanaa Lathan (The Perfect Guy, Something New) and Regina Hall (Scary Movie, Girls Trip) sat down for a chat on the heels of the release of Nappily Ever After.

While both actresses have exciting projects currently out – Sanaa Lathan stars in Nappily Ever After and Regina Hall stars in Support the Girls and The Hate U Give, fans of their films together will fondly think of The Best Man, Best Man Holiday and Love and Basketball .

It is wonderful, then, to see these two iconic actresses get together to talk about hair, Hollywood and friendship.

Let’s talk about the word ‘nappy.’

-Regina Hall

“In this culture, from the time we are little, little girls even with our dolls, with our fairy tales, with commercials, with advertising – we’re taught that hair equals beauty, “ Sanaa says, remarking on the significance of hair for women in general and black women in particular, in the context of Nappily Ever After.

In the movie, Sanaa plays Violet, a marketing professional who shaves off her hair after her relationship with her boyfriend, who’s also a doctor, falls apart. The now-famous hair shaving scene made waves on social media even before the movie came out, when Sanaa shared images of her bald — and very beautiful! — head.

Not only is it a black woman hair renaissance, it’s a renaissance in Hollywood and the world for more inclusiveness.

-Sanaa Lathan

And while the Nappily Ever After hair scene was both powerful and exhilarating, there was another hair scene that the two actresses bonded over: the scene in Love in Basketball when they played sisters Monica and Lena, and the shared moment when Lena braids her sister Monica’s hair. It’s a brilliantly played moment and it conveys the shared bond between black women around hair.

Sanaa Lathan and Regina Hall and had a ‘hair scene’ in Love and Basketball, playing sisters Monica and Lena (New Line Productions, Inc.)

“Have you ever felt pressured to wear your hair a certain way to make it in this business?” Sanaa asks Regina. It’s a great question and one you really listen in for the answer to.

As Regina discusses developing a character by first knowing how that character wears her hair, the conversation veers from friends, to colleagues, to artists discussing their craft, and it makes you really think of the ways in which hair winds its way through journeys on screen and off.

For Sanaa, that connection really hit home when she saw the movie Black Panther: “It really made me think of all the little children of color who are able to actually see [a reflection of] themselves.”

These are the kinds of moments and conversations that Let’s Talk Hair aims to have.